1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic parts mount apparatus and an electronic parts mount method for taking out an electronic part in wafer shape such as a semiconductor chip and mounting the electronic part on a board of a lead frame, etc.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic part cut out in wafer shape, such as a semiconductor chip, of electronic parts used with electronic machines hitherto has been taken out by a mount apparatus including a dedicated taking out unit and mounted on a board of a lead frame, etc. In the dedicated unit, a transfer head for taking out a semiconductor chip moves up and down at a fixed taking out position and a semiconductor wafer is held so that the semiconductor wafer is horizontally movable relative to the transfer head. The semiconductor wafer is moved in order, whereby one semiconductor chip at a time is taken out by the transfer head. The semiconductor chip to be taken out is registered to the transfer head by picking up an image of the electronic part in wafer shape by a camera fixedly placed on a wafer hold section and recognizing the position of the electronic part.
However, conventional mount apparatus described above, only one semiconductor chip is mounted in one mount turn in which the transfer head reciprocates between the wafer hold section and the lead frame, and the tact time is delayed because the image pickup operation by the camera in the wafer hold section and the mount operation by the transfer head are performed in the same cycle. Therefore, there is a limit on improvement of the mount efficiency.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an electronic parts mount apparatus and an electronic parts mount method capable of efficiently taking out electronic parts in wafer shape and mounting the electronic parts on a board.
According to the invention, there is provided an electronic parts mount apparatus for taking out electronic parts in wafer shape and transporting and mounting the electronic parts to and on a board by a transfer head, the apparatus including a wafer hold section for holding the electronic parts in wafer shape; a board positioning section for positioning the board; a plurality of suction nozzles provided on the transfer head for sucking and holding the electronic parts; a head move means for moving the transfer head between the wafer hold section and the board positioning section, and performing registration operation of the transfer head when the electronic parts are taken out in the wafer hold section and when the electronic parts are mounted in the board positioning section; an image pickup means disposed in a manner that the image pickup means can advance to and retreat from the wafer hold section, the image pickup means for picking up an image of the electronic parts in the wafer state when the image pickup means advances to above the wafer hold section; a position detection means for detecting the positions of the electronic parts based on image data provided by picking up the image of the electronic parts; and a control section for controlling the head move means based on the position detection result.
According to the invention, there is also provided An electronic parts mount method for taking out electronic parts in wafer shape and transporting and mounting the electronic parts to and on a board by a transfer head including a plurality of suction nozzles, the method including the steps of image picking up for picking up an image of the electronic parts in wafer shape by advancing an image pickup means to above a wafer hold section for holding the electronic parts, wherein the image pick up means is disposed in a manner that the image pick up means can advance to and retreat from the wafer hold section; position detecting for detecting positions of the electronic parts based on image data obtained by the step of image picking up; parts taking out for controlling the head move means based on a result of the step of position detecting, and taking out the electronic parts in order from the wafer hold section by the transfer head; and parts mounting for moving the transfer head to above the board positioned by a board positioning section, and mounting the electronic parts on the board; wherein the steps of parts mounting and image picking up for the electronic parts to be next taken out are performed concurrently.
By the above mentioned configuration and/or method, the transfer head for taking out electronic parts and transferring the electronic parts to a board comprises a plurality of suction nozzles and the step of parts mounting in the board positioning section and the step of image picking up for the electronic parts to be next taken out in the wafer hold section are performed concurrently. Therefore, the number of electronic parts per mount turn can be increased, the tact time can be shortened, and the electronic parts in the wafer state can be efficiently taken out and mounted on the board.